HOUSTON (TVC) — Four astronauts, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, started their 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon April 1, reaching a total maximum distance of 252,760 miles from Earth.
Barry “Butch” Wilmore was a NASA astronaut and naval aviator. He is now an entrepreneur, with his memoir hitting the shelves several weeks ago. He was stuck on the International Space Station for 286 days.
“The emotions, grateful that I was in space, absolutely. It was a, it’s a wonderful place to be stuck, and there are many definitions that we fell under that stuck, you know, mantra. Yes, we were stuck. You take the situation you’re in and you make the best of it, and you’ve got to perform and do your best as well,” said Wilmore.
Wilmore supported the Artemis II mission by working on the Space Launch System (SLS) Rocket and Orion Spacecraft.
“What I see, though, is a national resolve to do great things, and that takes an army of people and a large group of individuals that are passionate, the backing of our nation to do great things. Those are the type of things that great nations do. Still progressing, looking forward, looking out there, pushing the ends of the bounds of technology,” said Wilmore.
Sean Lindsay is a teaching associate professor and astronomy coordinator for the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He described Artemis II. There will be four Artemis missions. The Artemis II mission took four astronauts around the far side of the moon.
“It’s been so long since we’ve had humans that actually go into lunar orbit. We’re pushing the boundaries of what we’re capable of doing,” said Lindsay.
The astronauts have been taking photos during their 10-day mission.
“The earthrise is where the Earth is first starting to appear over the limb of the Moon again, and I find these, one, just absolutely staggering images that Artemis II could bring back,” said Lindsay.
The Moon is almost 238,855 miles away.
“Because the detail that we can see with the Moon is just super cool in and of itself. But then you can look, and that’s all of us right there. Every person that lives on Earth. This really creates an effect of like, we’re more in this together, we’re on Spaceship Earth together,” said Lindsay.
The astronauts will splash down off the coast of San Diego around 8:07 p.m. April 10.